Salish Sea Cruising 2014

[David Patterson]

I'll post a couple of times for those who have been viewing photos of my Gulf Islands cruise, now that I'm back in the states. 1) A lone yacht motors into Trincomali Channel in early morning light, to take advantage of tidal currents. 2) A page from my "cockpit log," my running commentary on each passage as well as my personal confessionary. 3) An iNavX screen shot of my track before and after. I now have four groundings to my credit, something like one every 125 cruising days. What is that saying? The only sailor who has never grounded has never been anywhere? I don't believe that. I do like the Douglass' statement that hitting a floating log is an accident. Hitting a charted reef or rock is inattention. Or perhaps in my case, foolishness.

[David Patterson]

A screen shot of little CLOUD GIRL's track across Boundary Pass, running at hull speed before a north wind, main at the second reef and genoa at 75% or so. COG is 147*. Sunrise in Boundary Pass, looking NE into the Strait of Georgia. And, leaden water as waves come in from the Strait.

[David Patterson]

Okay. The last of this flurry of posts. One of these is a not very clear, but still perhaps useful depiction of a 25 day cruise in the Gulf Islands, beginning in Friday Harbor of the San Juans, working north to Nanaimo, then returning to cross Boundary Pass. US chart 18400, 1:200,000. The other two are of SASSAFRAS of Friday Harbor, with a stern any sailor could love, and a profile deserving of lengthy study. Of course, the name was carved, with gold leaf, on the stern, but I wasn't able to capture it. Thank you, all of you who have taken time to view my images and read my commentaries lately, and especially to those who have added a comment or sent me a private message.

[David Patterson]

With an apology to those who don't enjoy charts and tracks, by request I'm posting a bit better depiction of the cruising area about which I've been recently posting. I'm leaving out most of the San Juan Islands tracks, and a bit of my track through the islets and rocks north of Sidney is missing. These are from US chart 18400 still. The order (if I get it right) is north to south, with my return track mostly the eastern one, except near Nanaimo and Dodd Narrows. I find the lower shot, of my entry into and exit from Canada, to be disorienting and dizzying, at this 1:200,000 scale. I was navigating using a chart booklet with more suitably scaled pages. I still managed to hit a rock. To be honest...the tip of an island. Oh well. I hope others will post similar tracks of their cruises along, say, the Maine coast or Florida, areas that are exotic for me. Inland lakes, too.

[David Patterson]

A photo of a young sailor's boat. I've gotten acquainted with him this season. A blacksmith (how many of them cruise a sailing vessel, I wonder?) he learned about sculling from me, and he is now trying out another friend's "yuloh," an oriental sculling oar with a lanyard to the cockpit sole. He uses it in a calm when he doesn't care to listen to his engine, telling me it is very satisfactory. And to shift his boat in an anchorage or dock area. He doesn't like keeping much gas on board. My photo doesn't really illustrate it due to distance, but the oar is three pieces of crafted wood "fished" together at angles. I like the light in the photo though. He admired my "book-keepers" while aboard CLOUDIE. I rigged them using eye screws and 1/8" brass rod. They keep the books in place at extreme angles of heel, and lift to allow book removal, which some of my well-thumbed guide books show is needed. This idea could be applied to almost any size shelf with ends to it. Handy place to temporarily hang some cloth or small line as well. When the temp is low, I sometimes hang a wool throw behind me where I'm sitting.

[David Patterson]

Some harbor photos: 1) a rare calm in early morning Friday Harbor, where currently I am re-provisioning after almost a month of cruising, and getting packages and other mail; 2) what I take to be a Lyle Hess design [it's a Falmouth Cutter, I've learned since], the freckled dog with the mildly concerned look, by the dock box, appears to be the cutter's harbor watch (this boat must be able to really pack on the canvas); 3) a brawny and commodious Canadian motor yacht, DECOY (of Vancouver, I recall). The boat is even larger than it seems on first glance. They are headed to the customs dock, not yet flying a US courtesy flag. The crew seemed to be outfitted with headsets and microphones for effective communication, as they go through the docking evolution. A sensible arrangement on such a big boat. They docked very gracefully, the helms person quite skilled.

[David Patterson]

Some of the fun of cruising, I think, is seeing a variety of other craft. To me, this is a mystery boat. A biggish cat-ketch-rigged(?) sailing vessel, yet, gaff-rigged as well? The sails look to be very light, given the lack of bulk in the furling. Unstayed masts. Oddly curved spars whose functions are difficult to fully figure out. While the elaborate cockpit enclosure may be valuable in a rainy area, what about windage? Surely it would need to come down off-shore. Would that glassy hard dodger be vulnerable? I didn't pace it off. 40 plus feet? Under the dinghy-on-davits is a stern platform, notice. Maybe she is used as a motor vessel, the sails auxiliary. Sure looks like primarily a sailing craft, however she is used. She must be a very roomy boat. Nothing easy to find out about her on line. A mysterious craft. The Herreshoff name is prominent on the side. Spotted in Friday Harbor. Anyone know anything about this sort of rig? (Please ignore my finger on the phone camera lens, if you can.)

[rorik]

The Falmouth Cutter and freckled dog belong to Alan of www.artofhookie.org

[David Patterson]

Right. I've met and interacted with him, and the freckled dog. The dog is very old, so the boat is harbor bound as the dog finishes her natural life, he told me. He has a Montgomery 6-8 dinghy in prime condition for sale. I could carry it over my forward hatch comfortably, but his asking price is too rich for me. Superb little craft for towing and rowing. No sailing rig though, which I desire. The dinghy is on craigslist. I hope you are getting out cruising yourself, Rorik.

[David Patterson]

This photo is a look south from Clam Bay of Penelakut Island (charted as Kuper Island) of the Gulf Islands Archipelago. 5/5/14. In many places a land bridge, called a tombolo, has formed between islands, in the dozen or so millennia since the glaciers melted and the land lifted. Penelakut I. is an "Indian Reserve," mostly in a natural state, so lush to gaze on. Houses here and there can be seen. There is no sense for me of being on the "edge of civilization" in these islands, as lightly populated as they are. Cruisers reference feeling that as they get farther north, above Desolation Sound, and so on. I'll find that edge one day. Or at least the feeling. [With some trepidation I am including here a link to my most recent journal volume (vol. III, 2014). The Gulf Islands portion begins on p. 117, I think, and gets to my turn-around at Nanaimo. The volume is unedited and un-expurgated, so please be generous with me if you do read some of it. Comments are welcome and desired, but send them by private message, if you will. It is by nature a personal document, written to share with my 92 year old mother, a shut in, some other family, and friends. And for my own use. Any of the errors and naivenesses are my own. One of my friends claims I am the last person in the world writing in long-hand, which I doubt.] https://www.dropbox.com/s/5jky140eefhkq ... %20III.pdf

[David Patterson]

This first photo seems a black and white study in contrasts of light and texture. It is actually in color. Notice the red/orange buoy by the white ones. I spliced that to a piling visible only at a minus tides, because my heart would be in my throat as unaware boaters motored near it. The white ones are where someone lost an anchor to a leftover logging cable. A fellow cruiser kidded me that I was becoming the bay's caretaker. Next he expected me to be ashore cutting the grass. I rely heavily on this bay, Parks Bay of Shaw Island (where you can't actually go ashore since it is a biological preserve) especially as a storm hole for heavy southerlies in the windier seasons, and often as a quiet uncrowded anchorage. In the second photo SOUNDS OF SILENCE of Richardson, a traditional cutter of lovely appearance, with her tall wooden mast and canoe stern, overnights in the bay. Lastly, a Canadian product (no connection to me) made with tea tree oil, that actually works. The odor is briefly notable but not unpleasant to me (and I'm sensitive to odors). Great find for on board my little constantly inhabited, and so humid, pocket cruiser. I've found that blushes of mold wither away. Not to be used if you are allergic to tea tree oil, of course. I'm not.

[David Patterson]

One of my sons-in-law asked me why I cruise. I told him for beauty, adventure, and comfort. He had trouble believing the comfort part, but he is still young. Early 40s. While the number of photos of sunsets I have is beginning to be embarrassing, here is an example of beauty while cruising. And I have finally begun to be able to look at the beauty away from the sunset's dramatic focus.

[David Patterson]

Adventure, beauty, comfort. Good reasons for cruising, as far as I'm concerned. About a week ago I posted photos of a boat named WHISPER II. Hal and Margaret Roth took their boat named WHISPER around Cape Horn, in the mid '70s, surviving being wrecked ashore. I have their 1978 book Two Against Cape Horn aboard, to read again soon. Wrecked in Tierra del Fuego counts as adventure (more than I need). Here is a photo of comfort. Comfort, to me, is a matter of contrast. A good berth after a squally sail is sublime comfort. Alberg got more out of his 25D design than seems possible. The port settee is my "guest berth" aboard. The bedding stays in a drawstring sea bag made by the upholsterer, in the footwell. A warm sleeping bag is in the bolster. The galley table has been dropped down to prepare for a guest. That un-oiled piece of teak over the shelves will stay there except at extreme angles of heel to starboard. I'm always curious when I come down below after a sail. Has it fallen? I could stow it elsewhere, but that would be less entertaining. I'll use that teak for something one day. End fiddles for the cabin table?

[David Patterson]

A converted-for-cruising salmon "troller," SANDRA JEAN II of Friday Harbor, greets the morning from her anchorage, in about ten fathoms. Lovingly maintained, wood, full of charm. The writing is a paragraph from the "sea letter" I send regularly to my 93 year old bird-loving mother, in a nursing home. She says she "sails" with me. The high-lighted current atlas page shows only one hour of a multi-hour passage I'm planning, from Friday Harbor to Sucia's Shallow Bay, then on some subsequent day across the Strait of Georgia to Blaine. The currents are going to be right for it. The winds are less predictable. I once managed a speed over the ground of 7.4 knots in that heavy current, in Force 5 winds. I couldn't believe my SOG readout. Then my jib halyard parted at the masthead. "There on hangs a tale," as the old stories would say.

[David Patterson]

A Sucia Island approach, from the south. Motoring into a near headwind, only the main deployed. I've been asked several times "how do you cruise on such a small boat?" One answer (caveat lector, let the reader beware) is to let comfort, health, and cleanliness be your guide, not the "necessities" of conventional middle class habit structure. Self care does take longer, which only aids in slowing down the relentless flow of time, experientially. Clothing is simpler, with no one to impress, no need for display of status or attributes, no requirement to vary the wardrobe to meet the expectation of others. Food is also. A coffee urn, for example, only used for fresh water, makes a very satisfactory hot water reservoir. Ice will make that beverage colder than a refrigeration system, and so on. Have standing headroom and comfortable berths, but above all, don't take all of your shore customs to sea. Adjust. It is more than possible to spend a few weeks between resupply episodes, with practice. What at first may seem compromises may even become preferences. True, it is not necessarily a "lifestyle" for the urbane, yet the quality of life need not be sacrificed, in my experience. One does have to go ashore to walk, but such pleasure to do so! And the options are remarkable. My greatest restriction? The size of my onboard library. Haven't solved that one yet, even with electronics.